It can also be a file system volume label or UUID, using this has the advantage that adding/removing disks won't effect what gets mounted. The format to use instead of the device name in the fstab file is:

LABEL=<label>

(Where <label> is some name, e.g. Boot)

UUID=<uuid>

(Where <uuid> is some number like 3e6be9de‐8139‐11d1‐9106‐a43f08d823a6. You can find out the uuid of your devices using hwinfo --block.)

How the label and the UUID are set depends on the file system type used. It can normally be set when creating/formatting the file system and the file system type usually has some tool to change it later on (e.g. e2tunefs, xfs_admin, reiserfstune etc.)

Mount Point

The mount point is what folder the filesystem is to be available under from system root, e.g.

/media/floppy

/media/cdrom

/mnt (temporary mount point)

Note: Make sure folder exists

Filesystem

This specifies what filesystem the device uses. Typically you will be mounting iso9660 for CDs and ext2/ext3/ReiserFS for hard drives/floppies. It can also be NFS which means the mount operation can only start after the network is up. If it is not a network drive and you just want it to be mounted (no matter which filesystem), use auto.

Options

This field describes how kernel should handle filesystem, i.e. will it be writable by the user.

sync/async - All I/O to the file system should be done (a)synchronously.

auto - The filesystem can be mounted automatically (at bootup, or when mount is passed the -a option). This is really unnecessary as this is the default action of mount -a anyway.

noauto - The filesystem will NOT be automatically mounted at startup, or when mount passed -a. You must explicitly mount the filesystem.

dev/nodev - Interpret/Do not interpret character or block special devices on the file system.

exec / noexec - Permit/Prevent the execution of binaries from the filesystem.